


Sparks

by snapspark



Category: League of Legends
Genre: M/M, gragas bar!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 04:37:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6641692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snapspark/pseuds/snapspark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s crazy,” he shouted into Yi’s ear, past the deafening music. Yasuo motioned between their bodies with a finger, to justify his astounding conclusion. “We keep running into each other.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sparks

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to justify this somehow, but I think I just needed to write this for myself.
> 
> Thank you to egg for honing this piece of my heart with me over skype, and to those who appreciate this ship in the same obscure way that I do, this is for all of you ♡

 

 

_I._

Yasuo wakes up in the dark, jolted by the last thread of a dream.

He rubs his face, the sound coarse on his skin, sighs into the cool room before him. In the dark he can vaguely see the Master’s outline to his left, the hump of his shoulder turned away rising and falling gently. His mouth tastes dry, his head rings.

Before the mirror he bunches up his hair, ties it halfway before turning to see the sunrise just break through the small sealed window of the bathroom. When he turns back his breath collects into condensation before him, fog washing over his reflection like a morning tide.

He grips the sides of the sink.

6 by 8, hardly bigger than this bathroom. That’s how large it was, the cell he was shown to, his camp for the next ten years. Yasuo remembered touching the starched sheets and the fibers hurt his knuckles. In the dream the prison guard tapped his feet as he jangled the keys behind him, on the other side of the bars, said ‘Should be grateful, Noxians have it worse’. Yasuo didn’t catch a glance, but he knew the voice even unconscious.

One more glance at Yi’s prone form before Yasuo pushes open the door into the morning air.

At the steps before the porch he shucks his robe and kicks his shoes off by the edge of the water. He takes the plunge straight in, closing his eyes on the splash, and his ears fill with icy water before he emerges with the lake up to his waist. It was hardly February by their calendar, the waterfall still running from melting glaciers, Yasuo’s hands shake as he holds them up to clench and unclench. Yasuo dives back into the lake, flushing out the beginnings of chaotic thoughts threatening to occupy his mind. He’s had worse dreams, stood in colder waters, but this time he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

Time distorts underwater, minutes creep by in the stillness, then Yi finds him submerged an indefinite while later, walking out into the warm sun with his helmet visor pushed up over his head, a towel slung across the shoulder, hands tucked into the sleeves of his night robe. He stops on the grassy bank beside Yasuo’s sandals, yawns in the direction of the woods. “Could’ve said so, if you wanted a shower.”

Yasuo chuckles. How domesticated, but he wasn’t going to sleep with a man in his house _and_ use his shower. “I’m okay.”

Master Yi paid no mind. “I started preparing some soup, you’re welcome to have some if you’d like.”

Yasuo debates telling the man that he should be on his way, but he felt he had already overstayed when he woke up with someone beside him for the first time in years, not to mention this one he knew a little more than he did most strangers. Still, every moment he feels slightly more uneasy at the thought of time catching up with him, among the other things hot on his heels, even acres away from any telltale life as he was. The anxiety keeps him from warming his seat, even though just a meal and a little more company couldn’t hurt.

Yasuo straightens, the wind on his wet skin pleasantly chilly. He tries to climb out of the water the way he is, but Yi holds out the towel, and Yasuo thanks him without meeting his eyes before wrapping it around his waist. Feet in sandals, he starts to walk towards his discarded clothes.

“I think—”

Suddenly the world spins. Yasuo wobbles, mid step. Yi’s eyes widen before he watches the man topple down the stairs, catching Yasuo’s pruned and purple fingers as he soundlessly falls onto the wooden platform fast asleep.

 

* * *

 

_ _

_The palm sized oil lamps, by which the entirety of Gragas’ bar was lit, dotted in intervals along the walls of the place, spilled their warm orange glow out the opened windows. It was summer, the air smelled of wheat, through the cracks drifted the quick strumming of a banjo. Master Yi stood idly in the corner, concealing into the darkness where the fanned out light didn’t reach. The acquaintance he came with was out of sight. Absentmindedly, he brushed off the condensation on his bottle._

_The door opened to another visitor, and the breeze drawn from the window shuffled his robe. As everything fell back unnoticed, Yi returned his attention to the counter, only to jolt when the back of the head he’d been staring at the whole night now became a pair of glassy eyes looking right into the shadows._

_He’d been caught._

* * *

 

Yasuo wakes up to a harsh light, startled by a touch on his cheek.

His head pounds hard for the first minute, and when his vision clears he sees standing before him the familiar outlines of the gold embellished cloak he loathes. Instincts kick in, he struggles to take in his surroundings, trying hard to recall his last memories, and the faint shock of the touch that called him to consciousness fights from drowning in the feverish marshland of his mind.

“—suo…”

Hm?

“Yasuo.”

It’s Yi. His hands move. A pressure on the shoulders, now Yasuo is sitting up against the headboard of the Master’s bed, blanket falling down around his waist. He takes a few difficult breaths through his mouth. The air tastes hot.

He sees Yi’s hands deliver a bowl into his lap. Eyes still he watches the colorful chunks swim around the mild looking soup, somehow feeling protective of them, commands his hands to wrap securely around the ceramic’s edge. 

“Stay still.”

He does as commands. Hands remove a cloth he didn't notice was around his head. Hears it plunged into water, wringed and wrapped around again. It feels distinct now, cooler, less like the temperature of his forehead.

“What happened…back there.” His memory’s returning. All he can remember is the roof above him spinning and then nothing.

“Seems like I underestimated how long you've been in the water.”

How long was that? He wonders.

“You have an awful fever. What were you doing for so long?”

Master Yi sounds dubious, and Yasuo doesn’t know how to answer. All he’s managed to remember was that before fainting he was thinking of telling Yi that maybe he’ll stay for just one meal, because he saw the chicken defrosting in the sink and was getting a little ravenous.

Yasuo sits in a numbed silence, back slumped and arms loose, head struggling to churn out coherent thoughts, but the fever was worse than he’s had in a while. Yi was right—why _had_ he obstinately sat in the freezing water for so long? Somehow it felt he had known this would happen. Yasuo knows there was a reason, but it feels distant now, and nothing he could think of would have been worth the thundering pain and immobility. He’s overstayed way past his welcome, wants to pull himself up and leave, but his muscles won’t give to the command to _move_ , and by the time he’s managed a frustrated grunt, Yi has slid a spoon into his hand. 

He lifts his head with strain, sees Master Yi clearly for the first time that day. He’s hugged by the loosely hanging coat of gold and grey, inside it a thin sleeveless shirt seals against his lean figure. He looks cold with the sides of his coat untied, but his face shows no signs of discomfort.

“Eat up.”

The broth feels hotter yet down his throat, but the taste is thick and pleasant with the aroma of chicken, laced with root vegetables and wild herbs he can’t name. Full inside, his body strength recovers slowly, like leftover glaciers melting his bloodstream flows now towards his extremities, returning his motor functions one by one. Yasuo politely declines seconds, and when he struggles to climb out of the blankets, the Master offers to take his dish to the sink, under the condition that Yasuo explains his actions when he’s fully come to.

“This first.”

Yi reaches forward, and instinctively Yasuo closes his eyes. The wet warmth around his head is removed. Yasuo opens his eyes to the sound of it being rinsed again in the basin, watching Yi’s hands plunge into the water to draw out a familiar piece of brown fabric. After a moment he remembers.

“That is your belt?”

His coarse voice startles the man, halting him for a minute. The shock on his face softens into something less decipherable.

“Ah, yes……not mine.” Yi hums pensively, tone unbetraying of his thoughts, looking down at the item in his hands, “memento of a friend.”

Yasuo nods noncommittally, digesting the information, eyes hovering over Yi’s hands and notices his actions become imperceptibly…slower, for a thought that seems to linger on his mind. Furtively he traces Yi’s clouded expression, but Yi’s gaze is cast on the fabric in his hands.

He wrings it hard with his bony fingers, and when the Master puts it back around Yasuo’s head he’s fallen silent. This time the cloth feels ice cold. So do the fingers.

 

_II._

Through the sheer curtain of the kitchen Yi’s shadow flickers. Yasuo hears the running water of the sink, tastes the stale air left in a room with only his sweltering self.

Leaning back against the headboard he observes the happenings of the other room. Eyes squinted, ears hammering with the boiling blood of heartbeats, head heavy with the immense weight of the sash tied around it. His hands curl loosely on his lap, and while Yasuo waits for the air to stir he distracts himself with idle thoughts, one morphing into another before they can be individually scrutinized: like how he would leave as soon as he can walk straight…how all his belongings sum up to a negligible pile in the corner…how ironic it is that he’s hiding in Ionia…how a second bowl of soup would have tasted…how the light looked against the mirror…how it felt to breathe underwater… how the first thing he has ever undressed on Yi was his belt, how it belonged to someone else.

 _Memento of a friend_.

A thin trail of lukewarm water drips down the side of his face, rolls into the corner of his deep scowl.

Suddenly the feeling of someone else’s effects against his skin becomes too wrong to bear.

Yasuo yanks it off his head, lobs it towards his feet—the wet morsel slumps against the blanket, makes his blood boil. Yasuo’s struck by anger, breathing heavily through his nose now as he glowers. His vision spins, hands clench, teeth grind. He’s losing rationality, feels the rush of everything he had tried to drown this morning, all at once—Master Yi’s infuriating absence, in anything but a rough pounding in the sheets, all their civilized discourse clearly a pretense, how he’d given in, deceived, to the man’s post-coital seduction to _stay_ , only to wake and find there is nothing but the gunpowder dryness in his mouth, to be shattered awake instinctively from a dream of capture as if he already _knew it was the same voice that cries his name,_ _yet he can’t for the life of him leave, controlled by this hectic swelling of_ something—

\-- _and why it should even matter--_  

That Yi greets his intrusion with just a textbook smile, that it doesn't fade until he’s pressing himself flush onto his back against the kitchen counter, hand in his hair so rough a half cleaned dish slips from his grip and he cries out in pain. Master Yi struggles until Yasuo’s hand wraps around his throat, seals his lips against his jaw, and by now he should _know_ what to do, and Yasuo waits for Yi to relax into the touch and lull him into their hypnotic rhythm, but he feels cold fingers pry lightly at his hand, hears a voice less than aroused.

“…suo, not…now…stop this.”

The words don’t register. Sounds turn to a rumbling, images to shapeless patterns, the electrifying burn of Yi’s cold touch on his blazing skin fizzles out to a caress. At last, he loses the battle against his body. Moments before the first bout of unconsciousness Yasuo sees the pieces of clothing tumble off the way he likes it, feels the weight of Yi’s body snap, like giving in.

When he comes to he’s slouched against the wall across the bed, his own flask dangling in his hand. Yi is tied to the headboard by his belt, wrists above his head, staring blankly at the ceiling.

Yasuo fights the vomit, closes his eyes. Face in his hands he shakes.

Something rolls into his mouth.

Tastes like lake water, like alcohol. Tastes like tears.

 

* * *

_He knew minimal things about the man he followed into the motel room, guessed his buddy knew more about him than just by name, but even names didn’t matter._

_Afterwards, Yasuo lay with his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling fan._

_He didn't hook up often, didn’t think this offer would prove almost too easy, too smooth, no awkward edges. Distastefully Yasuo wondered if he was so easy to read that the other man knew what he wanted before he even did himself._

_He felt he was being watched again, as he did earlier, and when he sat up he found the man with his back to him picking up Yasuo’s sword by the table. Yasuo was urged to stop him, but the man held his form, oddly but well, two hands steady on the hilt._

_A moment to consider the offer, but what could he lose. “I’m Yasuo.”_

_The man didn’t turn, adjusted his grip better. “What do you mean?”_

_“Nothing,” he said. “So what do you do?”_

_At this the man’s back straightened, and he slid the sword back in its sheath. He dug through his pockets, lit a cigarette between his teeth before turning around with an amused grin. “Forget me already?”_

_He offered the pack, and Yasuo declined, leaned back with his brows knotted. The man eventually took his leave, and Yasuo sat digging through his memory for a clue._

_Quarter-hour later it chilled him to the core when he finally realized why that wielding stance was so familiar._

* * *

 

 

 

Yasuo wakes up to candlelight, snaps awake suddenly from a dreamless sleep.

He sits up, finds himself on the bed and covered by half the blanket, the other half thrown aside and cold. Looking hurriedly down at his feet, he finds what he’s looking for. In front of his work desk Master Yi sits on a wooden stool, helmet over his eyes and thick mantle over his shoulders, before him a small mirror is erected beside a candle flame. The dark outline of Yi’s figure swims in Yasuo’s vision before becoming lucid. His mouth tastes awfully sour, but at last his mind feels clear.

The clarity lasts until he starts to _remember_ , struggles to remember everything he can about earlier.

While Yasuo wakes up and takes in the reality of the situation, Master Yi remains unperturbed in his candlelit task, goggles cast down on the small dishes on the table. Yasuo watches him break apart what looks like a fern leaf, hears him grind something with a pestle. He gets out of bed, agonizingly slow, the fear in the base of his throat threatening to spill over as he comes up behind the withdrawn man.

The meticulous work done, Master Yi clears out the substance from the mortar into a dish, then sighs, removes his helmet and sets it carefully in the corner. He carries the faint scent of the night.

Over his shoulder Yasuo watches him apply a ground paste of freshly picked medicinal plants, collected in a handkerchief, onto a strip of white gauze. Yi ignores him as he drapes the strip over one wrist, visibly red and bumpy with a band of rashes about two inches in width, says nothing as he wraps it around three times with the help of his teeth, and as Yasuo comes to understand that Yi is dressing and disguising his bruises, because he has to return to the village tomorrow and carry on being who he is.

He doesn’t know how to apologize, where to begin, if it mattered.

Yi presses the rest of the plant paste onto a second strip of gauze. Yasuo snaps out of it, reaches forward. “Let me—”

“No need.”

Yasuo takes the strip determinedly, and Yi can only sigh as he holds out his wrist for Yasuo to wrap the bandage and fasten it with a clip.

Yasuo’s hands release him, and Yi’s wrist drops to his sides. Beside him Yasuo begins to sink onto his knees, head down and hands sweating clutched around his knees.

His voice is coarse from disuse, a mere whisper. “I don’t know how to make up for what I’ve done.”

Master Yi looks dead ahead, into the candle flame. Yasuo stares at the floor, counting the seconds and bracing for what comes next. 

“You don’t have to,” Yi states.

Yasuo’s head snaps up, frustration clear on his face, but he catches a glimpse of the side of Yi’s neck, hidden earlier by the helmet. Shadows play tricks, but those are unmistakably the marks of his fingers.

He gets a better look standing, lifts a hand as if to touch his skin and then retracts it. Yi gets the idea anyway, tilts his head for him to see.

Yasuo swallows hard. He feels his anger rising again, a different reason now.

He lingers behind Yi, projecting his shame into the mirror, which reflects the bottom half of Yi’s face. “I don’t understand.”

“You could have, so easily…why didn't you stop me?”

Yasuo lifts his fingertips, places a light touch over a bruise on the back of Yi’s neck, not expecting a violent shudder to run through the man and for him to snap to his feet. The stool topples loudly across his leg. Master Yi’s palms meet the tabletop, knocking the candle down. The drying wax spills over where the mirror lies, flat beside his hand.

“Why should I?” He responds, tone cold and scathing. “You think too much of me and of yourself if you think I’m going to do you that favor.”

Yasuo’s mouth snaps shut.

His fists clench at his sides. He stares at the hard line of Master Yi’s back, trying to understand what it means, and this is all he can suddenly remember:

Somewhere along the many times Yi had plunged himself into the acquired taste of receiving pain for pleasure, Yasuo realized that the esteemed Ionian swordsman Master Yi, in private, thought only negligibly of his own existence, treated his self with abandon, showed no pride or dignity for his achievements. Yasuo didn’t dwell on it, it wasn’t his business. When he could never tell what Yi truly wanted from him, Yasuo gave what was asked, until now when he realizes it’s always been the same as what the Wuju master wants from anyone else, and from himself—nothing.

Yasuo’s chest strings tight, from what he doesn’t know. Can’t figure out why it matters so much that it hurts, words of a man he has no connection to and hardly knows, whose body had been his only momentary obsession. Doesn’t understand why forgiveness can feel so unwanted. Doesn’t know why it’s _not enough_ , this fleeting encounter, this detachment, this man, when he would gladly return any other name to the wind. Doesn't know but he’s starting to think maybe it’s the reason he’s still here.

“I’m sorry.” He drops his head. “I know it doesn’t mean much, but I don’t wish to hurt you.”

Master Yi is silent.

“Is this all you want from me? This the only reason you approached, and called me back again and again?”

Yasuo stares desperately at the back of Yi’s tousled hair, glowing blue from the thin light cast through the window.

“I don't know why I come. What…just what are we doing?”

_Give me a sign._

_Give me an answer._

Slowly, the man turns around. Yasuo tries to meet his eyes, heart speeding up in his chest. He sees Yi’s hand cup his jaw before he feels the hot touch, then he’s being brought down.

Sternly, he answers: Don't say any more.

Their mouths mash together. It's the first time. Yasuo’s eyes widen. Master Yi’s eyes are shut, his eyelids fluttering feebly as if he’s trying hard to keep them closed. Maybe this is the last hurdle, and right now Yi’s guiding him past it languidly, lets Yasuo push his tongue through the barrier of his lips. He tilts down to taste deep into Yi’s mouth, swirling their tongues together wildly, until Yi pulls his glistening lips away to breathe.

Yi has opened his eyes, but the last thread of conversation is long gone, and all Yasuo can read in the hazy look is a familiar lust.

Yasuo presses the man against the table, hands finding the skin of his waist under his cotton shirt, glides down past the elastic of his pants. In the cave of his underwear Yasuo strokes along Yi’s hot erection, jerking him off with his hand moving between their pressed thighs. He bends down to kiss him again, Yi leans back and they end up flat on the table beside the drying wax and mirror. Yi’s legs wrap behind him and Yasuo’s own tented hard on nudges into the crevice between Yi’s legs.

He waits for Yi to ask for something next as he always does, but Yi only pants softly to one side.

And Yasuo is done waiting.

He pulls them up, undressing hastily on the way to the bed that just as Yi lies face down on his knees he feels already the heavy heat of Yasuo’s cock settling against the base of his spine. Yasuo warms the lubricant between his hands before slathering it, opens Yi up with what’s left on his fingers, buries himself in one push into him. He fucks Yi distinctly gentler than the times before, holding him back against his chest because it feels like embracing his feat at the end of a long battle. He moans Yi’s name into his ear and makes him shudder. Yasuo forgets about everything else, gets lost in the feel of so much skin against his own, the sound of the other man’s wordless and sporadic moans raw and unfiltered. It’s the fastest he’s come close to orgasm in all the times they’ve been together. He buries his face into Yi’s sweaty shoulder blades, kisses messily down his spine. _How does this feel?,_ he whispers.

Yi has stopped moaning, only panting now into the pillow. Yasuo blinks, concern pulling him back from the haze, and he starts to slow down as he realizes he’s been too absorbed in his own pleasure to notice Yi’s been holding his back up stiffly, his hands lax by his head, presence faded.

Yi mumbles something inaudible, and Yasuo stops moving. “What?”

“No, don't…” Yi starts pushing back onto him, so Yasuo resumes, tense and confused.

“I said,” Yi says softly into his pillow. “I’m sorry.”

_Thank you for trying._

“It doesn’t…”

Yi turns to face sideways. His eye is crystal clear. There’s a smile at the edge of his lips. It looks so sad.

“ _I_ don’t feel anything.”

Yasuo’s heart sinks. And then Yi’s clenched hand, with its bandaged wrist, moves to overlap his own, and it locks their fingers tightly together. “But I want to.”

Slowly, Yasuo pulls away. Yi turns around and sits up, panicked, to see Yasuo reaching for the blanket at the end of the bed. He wraps it around Yi’s shoulders, then wordlessly pulls him in with a hand on the back of his head. Eyes closed he sighs feebly into Yi’s hair, presses a thin-lipped kiss into it.

Under the blanket, Yasuo lies down behind Yi, falls asleep with his arms tightly wrapped around him.

 

 

 

_III._

Yasuo wakes to light.

Yi is sound asleep beside him. The sunbeams spill steadily in, his call to be on his way at last.

He tries his best to not jostle Yi as he steps down to dress himself and pick up his belongings. He tosses the empty flask into his satchel, throws the worn cape over his shoulders, fastens the pieces of armor to his body. His sword rattles quietly against his hip, and Yi wakes to the sound, sits up to find Yasuo looking back from the threshold.

Their eyes meet, more or less. Yasuo opens his mouth, but he doesn’t know what to say. Yi waits, but the words never come.

Yasuo leaves a pat on the doorframe, before dipping his head as he exits. Yi nods at his retreating figure, falls back against the bed into seamless dream.

 

* * *

_At a different bar, next to a different motel, Yasuo caught him for the second time stalking in the same kind of darkness._

_Yasuo was drunk and glowing when he approached. “It’s crazy,” he shouted into Yi’s ear, past the deafening music. Yasuo motioned between their bodies with a finger, to justify his astounding conclusion. “We keep running into each other.”_

_Yi laughed into his shoulder, sound lost in the room._

_“Yes,” he said to himself, closing his eyes. “Funny how that happens.”_

* * *

 

_the end_


End file.
